Lola Smith (left) and her sister Joyce Lewis try Old Hopper's Brew, which features them as children hop picking on its label. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

As children, Lola Smith and her sister Joyce Lewis were part of the annual exodus of thousands of Londoners who took a working holiday picking hops in the fields of Kent to produce beer.

Sixty years on, while most of the hop fields have gone, the sisters are still picking hops – their latest harvest was earlier this month. But now the hops are grown right on their doorstep in east London as part of a project that is producing what could be the most environmentally friendly pint on the planet.

Bottles of Old Hopper's Brew, which uses hops grown in a communal garden in Cable Street, Stepney, even carry a label with a sepia-tinted picture of the sisters picking hops at Lily's farm near Tonbridge in the late 1940s.

The first batch of beer brewed last year was a sell-out, lapped up in trendy West End pubs in Soho and Covent Garden.

The story of Old Hopper's Brew started when social landlord Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH) opened a new block and wanted to do something different with the courtyard garden.

THCH chief executive Mike Tyrell, who went hop picking with his family as a child, says: "Many residents remembered going hop picking so we decided to commemorate it by planting hops and in September, the traditional hop picking season, holding a hop festival harvest and exhibition of hopping photos – including Lola and Joyce. Hops are easy to grow and we had a really good harvest."

The then THCH lettings officer Mick O'Rourke, a real ale fan, contacted the new owners of an abandoned brewery a few miles away to see if they could turn the hops into beer. O'Rourke recalls that the owner, James Brodie, jumped at the chance "but had to use his mum's airing cupboard to dry the hops as there aren't too many oasthouses around". And it was Brodie, who brews his own Brodie's Beers, who chose the picture of the sisters for the labels and beer pumps.

According to Tyrell, the project has been a success on many levels. "It taps into interest in heritage. Also, as part of our brief as a social landlord, we need to demonstrate that we are doing our bit for community cohesion. And this is locally grown produce, picked by hand for free and brewed a few miles away, so it must have a tiny carbon footprint."

Smith, 70, says: "I think it's wonderful that it started out just as a way of remembering something that we all loved so much and was part of our lives."

Lewis, 69, wishes that hopping would make a comeback so that youngsters today could enjoy some of the adventures they experienced.

"It was the most wonderful time," she says. "You were totally free, walking among orchards picking apples and plums for free – unless the farmer saw you."